As a piano teacher, I cannot escape online piano courses. Given their widespread acceptance in today’s age and time, my students introduce me to these courses all the time. Believe it or not, there are plenty of students who are happy to tell me about online piano lessons, which they have tried in the past to learn piano songs from the comfortable cushions of their house. In fact, one of the hardest things that I have done in life was to keep up with the sheer amount of piano-related reading to see for myself what these best online piano lessons had to offer. I have read guides on how to play piano by yourself, looked through free online piano lessons for beginners, tried “best way to learn piano”, and what not.
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Who am I to Talk about Best Online Piano Lessons?
For those who are not aware, I am a 35-year old music/piano teacher, and I have been in this trade for longer than Facebook’s inception. Now, I am not that person to bash online piano courses because they hurt my profession to a certain extent. I still believe that there is no substitute for a live teacher, especially for the advanced folks out there. But, some of the top rated online piano lessons do come with their share of advantages. After all, online piano education is convenient, flexible, and budget-friendly too. Moreover, it allows a person to study anytime and anywhere at his/her own pace. Given the varied learn piano online courses available today, I must also state that they are adaptable to various learning styles.
Learn Piano Online: Best “How to Learn Piano” Books and Guides Available Online
Over the years, I have read more, how to play piano by yourself, best learn piano book, learn piano songs/material than what most students would ideally study to clear a high school grade. So, I can not only teach a student in person, but I can also introduce him or her to free online piano lessons for beginners or any other online piano guide that may best fit his/her needs. For all the folks reading this post, I would like to introduce you guys to the best three online courses that I found to be a cut above the scope. Inside the pool of online courses, these courses really stood out from the crowd. So, anyone attempting an online course can give a shot at the digital guides given below. With that said, let me provide you guys with a quick review of the best online piano lessons in question.
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flowkey Review
Link: flowkey.com
Among many online piano courses I’ve tested, flowkey is one of my favorite. With it you can learn using the App on your tablet or smartphone, or just a website if you like using it from your computer. But let’s talk about everything in order.
Flowkey learning process consists of two parts, you can choose which way is more suitable for you, or follow them one after another, or both of them in parallel:
- Learn how to play the piano from the very beginning. There are 8 structured courses, each of the course has 5-12 lessons covering various topics. Most of the topics are for beginners, starting from correct orientation at the piano, easy one-hand exercises, rhythm practice, reading sheet music, etc. But there are also some useful courses for intermediate piano players, including course on chords improvising.
In the practical part of the lesson you listen to a fragment and then repeat it. Nice thing is that flowkey app listens to your playing and waits until you play correct notes. The notes you should play are highlighted on your device’ screen and duplicated on the musical staff view below.
Flowkey uses either your microphone or USB-MIDI interface to listen to your playing.
- Learn to play your favorite songs. This part is indeed for everyone. There are more than 1500 songs uploaded to flowkey for every skill level: from the simplest version of “Happy Birthday” to really advanced 5-minute piano arrangement of “Bohemiam Rhapsody”. The songs in the catalog can be filtered by category (Romantic, Classical, Pop hits, Film&TV, Game Music, Jazz, Melancholy, Evergreens, Kids, R&B and more) and also by skill level (Beginner, Intermediate, Pro, and Advanced). Some of the songs are available in different skill versions, so you can start with the easiest version and improve your play as you learn. You can select some complex piece of the song and the app will repeat it. Or you can switch off back-lighting of one of the hands and play with the other, activate “wait mode” (the app waits until you press the correct notes) or slow down the playback speed to 50 or 75%.
As per me, I loved some arrangements of the Advanced and Pro songs very much, they sound really great and professionally. And I’m sure that people around will be delighted listening to your playing if you learn these pieces, especially if they didn’t know about that part of you before.
As all of the best online piano courses out there flowkey is a paid course. But you may register for free to see if it suits you or not. On registering you will have access to all the songs and courses available inside in a limited mode: you can listen to all songs, but only 8 of them are open for “learning”; you will see all the courses structure, but only few lessons will be available for you to test the learning. I’m sure you will buy premium when you see what is inside. At the time of review the price for it is not that much for all the songs and courses it provides:
- $9.99 per month in yearly subscription
- $19.99 per month in monthly subscription
- $329.99 lifetime unlimited subscription
Keep in mind – registration and some songs and lessons are free! And sometimes they have discounts, check it.
Pros
- Well-structured beginner piano course
- Uses your microphone or USB-Midi interface to listen to you as you play along with the exercises
- More than 1500 songs for various skill levels to learn
- You can choose your language for the lessons: English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and even more languages are available for subtitles
- No need to pay if you want to see what’s inside – registration is free
Cons
- Sheet music of the songs and lessons’ materials are not available for download, you can use them only online
I can recommend flowkey as one the best online piano learning apps for both beginners and advanced players. Beginners will find the piano course useful and can start learning easy songs right during the practice. Advanced players will get a lot of well-arranged songs to learn, which you will hardly find piano sheet music for. Free registration and flexible purchase options also gives credit to the course.
| Visit flowkey.com |
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Pianoforall Review
Link: pianoforall.com
Pianoforall takes one of the top places in my online piano courses rating. With a wide range of styles and techniques along with embedded video and audio, the Pianoforall is a 10-eBook package that has helped many students shine. From what I have read, I must admit that the guide makes learning easy and fun. It’s a computer-based stepwise guide that aims at teaching piano fast and easy.
The Guy Behind the Course
This online piano course is written by Robin Hall, who is a professional piano teacher and a well-known cartoonist. In his e-Book, he has included his email address for personal contact. I had reached out to him twice and found him very helpful and friendly. He also responds promptly. I came across numerous testimonials that echo this thing. By the way, there are plenty of testimonials published on the pianoforall website, and they seem to be real, I personally know some of these people!
Course Breakdown
As mentioned before, the author provides 10 eBooks that are well laid out in the best order. The first e-Book, ‘’ Play by Ear’’ introduces users to piano education. After the basics, it also includes some advanced stuff and modern day’s popular songs to play. The second e-Book covers a lot of today’s Blues and Rock ‘n’ Roll rhythms. The third one is called the ’Chord Magic’’, which includes amazing tips and tricks to change chords quickly using inversions. It also has loads of speed learning exercises and a piano chord chart to improve your memory.
The fourth book brushes up on advanced chords. The fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth book includes many exercises in different styles such as jazz, classics, ballads, etc, to help one enjoy and master all the advanced chords without too much of a fuss. The ninth book focuses on playing speeds. It covers a lot of content to help one learn in a fun way. The last e-Book is jam-packed with resourceful information along with a bunch of songs (that you will probably recognize) to play the chords to the songs.
I should mention that 500 audio files are embedded directly into e-books, which makes it very comfortable to read and not to switch between programs to start the playback. All the videos are both streaming and downloadable with great quality.
Pros
- It’s a well-written guide from top to bottom with relevant audios and videos for better grasping. It’s suitable for all age-groups.
- The author has included many well-known songs that most users must have probably listened to in the past.
- It’s suitable for beginners as well as intermediate folks out there who are keen on learning/improving their skills.
- From what I have researched, the guide has received a ton of glowing reviews from learners and pianists across the globe.
- It comes with a rock-solid 60-day money back guarantee. So, you won’t feel the need to badmouth the guy’s mom if you don’t like the guide.
- The customer support from the author, Robin Hall, is second to none. He really knows how to take care of his customers.
- Priced at $39, it definitely won’t break your bank. Remember, you will be getting 200 videos, 500 audios, and 10 eBooks for the asking price. All videos are high quality and downloadable.
- The author also throws in a bonus piano book. For an additional $10, interested prospects can choose to get the complete course on a DVD ROM.
Cons
- Some people with older computers may need to keep in mind that the download size for the complete course is 1.4GB – although that’s not too much for over 10 HOURS of video, and you can download each book separately if you need to – on average they are 200MB.
Other then the above there are no real cons, PianoForAll is a great choice for you to learn piano and I can highly recommend it. By the way, on the website it says there is a half price sale now, so the price may soon go back up to $79, so you’d better hurry up!
| Visit PianoForAll.com |
- Learnpianoin30days Review
Link: learnpianoin30days.com
It’s a 30-day online piano course developed by singer and songwriter, Rachel James. It offers a complete roadmap to learn piano at your own pace, fast or slow. The author makes the content available to paid subscribers. A paid member gets full access to the training material, which includes a bunch of videos, audio, and printable music sheets to successfully learn piano without throwing an arm and a leg. After the learning phase is over, members can get better at playing the piano by getting a monthly subscription from the site.
Is the Guide Credible?
One of my students told me that his friends laughed at him for getting the Learnpianoin30days guide to learn piano songs from the computer. He didn’t let their laughter deter him from following his plan. A couple of months down the road, learning the lessons helped him improve his piano playing skills to a great extent. So, he did have the last laugh!
Thanks to this student, I got a chance to read the materials. For someone teaching piano, I must say that the guide has superior learning information and instructions that are thoroughly explained via step-by-step tutorials. Other customer reviews also speak in favour of the product. So, the product is definitely credible, and, of course, affordable too.
Pros
- The Learnpianoin30days guide offers an affordable solution to learn piano online without shaving off hundreds of dollars for a private tutor for music education.
- The video lessons are pretty short but highly informative. On a personal front, I like it that way. If you stay self-motivated, you will enjoy the lessons.
- With the help of this course, you can learn how to play piano by yourself without any musical background. With practice, you will also be able to create your own compositions from ground zero.
- The course includes beginner-friendly as well as advanced lessons. So, it might cater to the needs of newcomers as well as strong pianists.
- The author promises a full refund if you don’t like what you read. Users can claim a refund anytime within 60-days.
- The author allows users to test-drive the product for 14-days at a nominal fee of $1. The 14-days trial is a great opportunity for prospects to test all the claims made by the author.
Cons
- The author promises that a user will be able to play at least ONE of his/her favourite song within 30 days. Not everybody learns at the same pace, but if your song is not very difficult, you will definitely play it after the course!
| Visit LearnPianoIn30Days.com |
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Rocket Piano Review
Link: rocketpiano.com
It’s a nine-book curriculum that teaches piano lessons in many different ways. At the core, it features three books (The Beginner, The Intermediate, and The Advanced Book) along with a bunch of bonus stuff, 50+ video clips, and 130+ audio files. Each lesson is presented in a digestible and easy-to-swallow fashion. In fact, three different learning games are also included for an enriching learning experience.
About the Creators of Rocket Piano
Ruth Searle is the creator of Rocket Piano. She is a classically trained pianist with over fifteen years of experience in the music field. You will spot here in the video lessons. She has an extensive background in rock, pop, gospel, jazz and other genres. So, she is not your average pianists. From what I have read and seen, I can state that she definitely knows her stuff. But she is not the only person who works on the site. All the lessons at Rocket Piano are created by a team of professional piano teachers with over 30 years of musical experience and tens thousands students taught. So you can be sure that they no how to teach you fast and easy.
After you signup for the course you get 6 bonuses:
- the Rocket Piano Metronome
- Jayde Musica Pro (special software, you may call it a game, which brings enjoyment to learning how to read music)
- Chordinator (teaches you how to read piano chords easily)
- Advanced learning techniques (with them you can reduce your learning time to the half)
- Perfect Your Pitch (a listening game which will train your ear)
Now let me describe some pros and cons of the course, though you it’s not easy to find the later.
Pros
- This online piano course is structured learning at its best. With step-by-step instructions, lessons, and popular songs, it couldn’t get any better than this digital guide.
- Rocket Piano makes piano education fun. It helps users read and understand music like nobody’s business. It’s designed to be one of the easiest online piano courses out there.
- The makers deserve credit for introducing clever chord symbols for faster recognition. True beginners will benefit a great deal from this style of learning.
- Ruth Searle sends free weekly updates via newsletters to all the users, which includes more course material on various topics. Plus, she offers the usual support options needed to reach out to her.
- It’s available for instant download for an incredibly low price of $39.95. Furthermore, the course material is available for immediate download upon one-time payment.
- The product comes with a 60-days safety net. So, it can prove to be a hassle-free buy for most users.
- 6 unique and informative bonuses are thrown in for free.
Cons
- If you choose to have it shipped to your doorsteps, it can cost you well over a hundred dollar, depending upon where you live. But the download is free, so these expenses are optional.
I can certainly recommend Rocket Piano. If you are still not convinced to pay, you can sign up and get access to 7 beginner lessons absolutely free! And if you pay you anyway have 60 day money back guarantee, so there is absolutely no risk on your side. With all that said I would definitely gave it a try.
| Visit RocketPiano.com |
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30DayPiano Review
Link: Unfortunately 30daypiano has been closed in Aug 2020, no new users are accepted.
Recently one of my new students told me about the new online piano course called 30DayPiano. He bought this course to try, and I can say that for a person who had never done music before, he got some good basic knowledge and could even play some tunes with both hands. But let’s talk about everything successively.
30daypiano is a relatively new course from the creators of the famous guitar site guitartricks.com. Christopher Schlegel – the instructor- explains the basics of musical theory, but does not go too deep into details so as not to clutter the novice’s head. In a very accessible way, consistently, Christopher explains how the piano keyboard works, what is the correct hands and fingers position, how to understand rhythmic notation, play warm up routines. Together you will play the first tune with one hand first, then with both hands. Learn to play major and minor chords, arpeggios, broken chord patterns, learn how to read sheet music and more. Don’t be afraid if these words are unknown to you, you will learn them all during the course.
The course is designed specifically for those who have never studied music before. It is divided into 30 video lessons of 15-20 minutes each. After the first lesson, you will be able to play your first melody. But do not think that you can immediately go to the last lesson and learn how to play everything in one day. Each next lesson uses the knowledge gained in the previous one. Therefore, be sure to go through all the lessons in sequence. Moreover, in almost every video you will learn some new famous melody. You can look at one video per day, then you will finish the entire course in 30 days. But I would recommend staying longer at each lesson and practicing all the exercises until you fully understand them – there will be no use of the course without your own practice.
The course ends with learning famous Coldplay’s song “The Scientist”. And of course you will be able to use all the learned patterns and chords to play any number of songs.
Here are some points which I can highlight about the course:
- Short lessons teaching only the most important things. You will be playing in each lesson – it’s not boring
- Play your first melody after the first lesson
- Step-by-Step for beginners, just follow along
- Videos are in 4K, the screen divided into 3 parts: the instructor, his hands on keyboard, and keyboard with pushed keys colored – very comfortable to see
- You can download sheets for each lesson
- Onscreen and downloadable notation with useful diagrams
- Famous songs to learn in almost every lesson
I can come up with only one thing that could be better in 30daypiano.com – the course could be more than 30 lessons long:). Perhaps it will expand to 60DayPiano some day, but for now I can surely recommend 30daypiano.com as a good starting point for piano beginners.
The special discounted price for the 30-day online piano course is $58 (one-time fee) (normally it costs $129!), which is less than $2 per lesson! But if you don’t like something you can refund your purchase within 30 days, so I can’t see what can stop you from trying. Just don’t give up if you don’t succeed after the first lesson, keep learning and I’m sure you will get to the top! By the way, you can get your first lesson for free, just singup for it.
Conclusion
So, that concludes my list of best online piano lessons. In my professional opinion, these courses are the absolute best ones by any standards. In fact, these courses have increased my level of appreciation for online piano courses. Therefore, I do not mind recommending them to students who are on a budget. So, if you are one of those guys who cannot imagine life without music but can’t afford to take private courses, you can take a shot at any one of these digital courses to kickstart your musical journey at a shoestring budget.